The Cover

I really like the way this cover came out. Alex always tries to persuade me to hold off on making covers as to not rush them so I can get a good idea of everything that will be included inside (to more let the content dictate the cover), but I always have a burning drive to bust them out as soon as possible. They inspire me, and I think they end up inspiring him as well. They also get fans excited, give everyone a nice opening image, and give me something I can use for linking and advertising.

While I like most every cover I’ve made for different reasons, especially the cover for I’m Famous!, I think this one blows them all away and kicks things up to a new level, which is fitting for the new art style. First off, vigilant readers will notice that they’ve seen variations of most of this artwork before in my recent desktop backgrounds and my character redesign. The bottom right was actually an alternate image I worked on but didn’t use for a desktop background.

So this was relatively quick and easy to make, since I had already created the bulk of the artwork. Mostly this required me to reformat and re-purpose these previously created elements. The toughest part was coming up with an image concept. Alex really wanted something that featured Detroit pretty heavily, and we both felt it should have Black Snow on the cover. I also really wanted to work drinking and possibly smoking into it. I also wanted it to be black and white, whereas I think Alex was leaning towards color. I had a few different conceptual ideas, and Alex had some others, and it was looking like this would actually be a somewhat drawn out process where I was going to draft up a few different proposals.

Then I started focusing on the Detroit element and looking at all kinds of imagery on the web. I was looking at icons, at what other people had already created as tributes, at all sorts of photos, reading more about the city and even took a Google street view tour. I was struck by some classic postcards that I ended up theming the cover after. Then I realized I already had already created this imagery I really loved that could fit well into this theme.

And after trying it out I thought it was really striking and grabbed your attention, while giving you a good idea of what to expect inside. I actually did not have Black Snow on it at first, but Alex thought it was important and actually helped me pick where he’d be positioned. Then I just thought I’d try the Black Snow image I recently made, just as a filler until I could draw one for the cover, but when I saw it on there I felt like it was perfect.

I considered making him black and white, but I agreed with Alex when he thought it looked better with only that element in color. Honestly, I think it is better than a lot of graphic novel cover I see at the comic book store, and I’m very proud of what I’ve created.